Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable

[Kutu]

The shorts are doing everything they can to make it more costly and difficult for Tesla do do a cash raise. Their hope is that TSLA will go to zero- and they are hanging in.

 

[MarcusMaximus]

No. That would be incredibly brittle.

These vision NNs just take in pixels and put out labeled bounding boxes. Tesla's labels are ID (car/truck/whatever), distance estimate, direction hint, etc. The NN doesn't know or care about camera location. The heuristic code which builds the 3D view obviously must know camera locations and orientations.
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None of this is true, or, at least, misses the nuance in what I said. A CNN trained on a single(or small number of) set of camera angles will end up relying on those cameras being at those angles at inference time. Anything outside those will break it, resulting in faulty outputs.

You can design a network that can be used more freely, but that requires training on a broader array of angles and camera types, and will require a more complex model, requiring more/better hardware for processing.

EDIT to add: Neural Networks are great at generalizing, but can only do so for things within the bounds of what they’ve seen before. In other words, they do great at interpolating but not so great at extrapolating.

But yes, actually gathering the detected objects together and figuring out what to do with them will require either consistent camera locations/directions or training on another broad array of them(and very likely having some accurate info to give the network about where they are and which direction they’re facing).

With LIDAR you don't have to "understand". You know there's a large object in a certain location moving in a certain direction. If your vision NNs identify it as an airborne car, terrific. But even if not, you have enough info to take evasive action. (Of course your code has to use that info properly - bad s/w will always defeat good sensors).

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For detecting the object, this is true. But then, it’s true of vision using stereo cameras as well. So long as you can detect that there’s *something* large and airborne coming at you, following networks/code dealing with objects don’t really care whether that info comes from LiDAR or cameras or anything else. A simple “other positive object” category in their classifier will handle that.

Interestingly, this is actually a category where vision can do much better than LiDAR alone. Being able to see what that flying object is gives the following networks/code a fighting chance as being able to tell how it’ll behave, where that’s mostly hopeless with a LiDAR detection.

 

[Tslynk67]

Je n'ai pas l'habitude de généraliser, mais je dirais que ça prend bien un Belge pour nous faire un scénario de BD avec le Pick Up reveal

Désolé de vous décevoir, mais bien que je vis en Belgique, je suis britannique, mais j'ai la double nationalité belge...

Brexit, you know...

Ellipses added for @Intl Professor...

 

[Krugerrand]

Saw 2 more carriers full of Model 3's heading to SF pier this morning.

Just driving them off the piers now, eh? Get enough of them, throw a bit of dirt on top and we can reclaim more ocean.

 

[Tslynk67]

The shorts are doing everything they can to make it more costly and difficult for Tesla do do a cast raise. Their hope is that TSLA will go to zero- and they are hanging in.

They play a dangerous game. Although it has been nearly two years of turmoil, sometimes two steps back for every one forward, Tesla nevertheless is in a very good position right now. All they need to do from here is to manufacture cars. No need for anything new for the next two quarters, just pump out those vehicles and get GF3 running.

Some no-drama months with good production and delivery figures will put the stock back above $350 imo, and that could happen very quickly once shorty starts capitulating.

 

[ZsoZso]

Here’s the thing, though. They’ve done cap raises before and for a little while WS is happy and then they aren’t and we do it all over again. Yuck. I’m over it. Get the money, if you need it, from other sources - like they did in China.

I think Elon should "shop around" WS, i.e. negotiate with various WS banks for terms of capital raise, but express disappointment about the current SP, saying it will need to be much closer to ATH to be worth it. In other words, incite a bidding war between them who would help raise the money and make them pump up the SP.

Drag out these negotiations until S&P inclusion which will trigger natural further rise of SP.

Then tell the WS banks to F-off and raise money from his friends, such as the two Larry (Page and Ellison).

 

[Krugerrand]

So here's a cool scenario... Pickup reveal day, Elon drives out onto the stage in the most ridiculous looking thing you've ever seen - as he said, steam-punk meets Bladerunner - titanium, FWD's, motor for each wheel, 400kWh battery pack, spiky things all over, etc. He runs through some outrageous power, range, acceleration and speed specs and then reveals a price-tag that's 2x more than the Roadster. Special order, hand-built, limited volumes, collectors piece essentially. That's his vanity project.

He then throws in a "one more thing" and Franz drives out in the mass-market pickup, with, which nobody expects to see at this moment. It's a killer, well specced and well priced. The crowd goes nuts, the SP goes through the roof, even the MSM struggle to pick faults, Toilet-Boy's head actually explodes, like in Scanners.

This would be something.

That’s the thing about dreams and the imagination; it can always conjure up something more outrageous and far fetched.

 

[Krugerrand]

I think Elon should "shop around" WS, i.e. negotiate with various WS banks for terms of capital raise, but express disappointment about the current SP, saying it will need to be much closer to ATH to be worth it. In other words, incite a bidding war between them who would help raise the money and make them pump up the SP.

Drag out these negotiations until S&P inclusion which will trigger natural further rise of SP.

Then tell the WS banks to F-off and raise money from his friends, such as the two Larry (Page and Ellison).

I love a good evil (but for good) plan like that.

 

[Pras]

Just ordered my solar panels online. 5 mins process but I have to go home to take some pictures and upload. Price seems 20% cheaper from what was quoted 2 months back. Although, it is $2.8/w, not $2. Maybe higher due to my location (NJ is expensive in labor cost).

For reference the previous quote was what Tesla said was a discounted quote so I assume the 38% reduction is compared to the original solar price.

Let’s hope my roof is good enough to hold it.

 

[Curt Renz]

Barron's - 47 minutes ago: Tesla’s Earnings Were Even Worse Than They Looked, Analyst Says

Sacconaghi is the analyst whose conference call question a year ago was called "boring bonehead" by Elon.

 

[InDaClub]

Personal anecdote on Tesla Energy- a company I had talked to 3 months ago about installing solar had told me they had powerwalls on order but had no idea when they’d ever get them.

Got a call this AM that they met with Tesla and are getting 50 Powerwalls within the next month. They are charging $12,500 per powerwall to add to a system.

Company is in Charlotte, NC

I post this because in my opinion Tesla Energy revenue growth is one component that could push institutional re-evaluations of the stock price

If you don't mind me asking, what's the name of the company?

 

[Webeevdrivers]

Now that the smart ED is discontinued for North America maybe Elon should invest in a little city puddle jumper for 20 grand out the door.

Picture my wife took this morning at Home Depot. Her ED smart parked beside a distant cousin Tesla S. (I’m uncomfortable driving something with the word ED in it. That’s why I drive a real mans car, A leaf. . No wait.....

 

[Curt Renz]

MarketWatch - this morning: Here’s how to rationally value Tesla’s stock

 

[jerry33]

Now that the smart ED is discontinued for North America maybe Elon should invest in a little city puddle jumper for 20 grand out the door.

Remember that it will flip just by running onto a curb. I can't see safety-conscious Elon building a car like that.

 

[Joe F]

Very positive piece and video with hedge fund CEO Chamath Palihapitiya on CNBC earlier today on Tesla. Refreshing change from their typical guests. Was surprised they put this online.

EDIT: While I watched it live, I assumed the video also contained hit clearheaded stance on why he's supportive of Tesla/Musk. They did not air that segment now that I watched the online (short) segment. Sad. Sorry for the false alarm on the video, but the text in the article was (mostly) included.

 

[Kutu]

They play a dangerous game. Although it has been nearly two years of turmoil, sometimes two steps back for every one forward, Tesla nevertheless is in a very good position right now. All they need to do from here is to manufacture cars. No need for anything new for the next two quarters, just pump out those vehicles and get GF3 running.

Some no-drama months with good production and delivery figures will put the stock back above $350 imo, and that could happen very quickly once shorty starts capitulating.

I agree with you. I am in this long term, therefore quarter-to-quarter means very little to my faith in TSLA. But the constant negative FUD could effect funding- if it is needed and that could hurt.

 

[Alexander Grea]

Market Action:

Relentless selling pressure against the recovering macros. Hoped that the bounce after a week as bad as last week would take us to 260 by the end of this week.

If we close below 240 then might get ugly again. Just need to hope that InisdeEV numbers are coming out soon and capital raise is around the corner.

 

[Drax7]

The negative FUD hurts the brand and sales.
A reinforcing vicious cycle .
Need to brake the pattern.

 

[EVMeister]

If we close below 240 then might get ugly again. Just need to hope that InisdeEV numbers are coming out soon and capital raise is around the corner.

Didn't you say yesterday that if we closed above $240 it would be great for the continued climb into the week? Sorry if I misremember. Perhaps this $240 point is actually pretty meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

 

[ZachF]

I think Elon should "shop around" WS, i.e. negotiate with various WS banks for terms of capital raise, but express disappointment about the current SP, saying it will need to be much closer to ATH to be worth it. In other words, incite a bidding war between them who would help raise the money and make them pump up the SP.

Drag out these negotiations until S&P inclusion which will trigger natural further rise of SP.

Then tell the WS banks to F-off and raise money from his friends, such as the two Larry (Page and Ellison).

I don't think S&P inclusion is in the cards for 2019.

Tesla would have to make a ~$300 million profit in Q2 to do so, or ~$600m in cumulative profits in Q2+Q3 to do so by late this year. It would need about $700m in cumulative profits in Q2+3+4, but that wouldn't get recognized until 2020. Since Tesla is guiding for a loss in Q2 too, this makes april or july 2020 much more likely.